OOH business recovery will take some time coming in Kerala

Rajesh Kumar, Director, Chitra Painters says that while the media assets as such have not been damaged in most cases, the business hit in the Onam season is hurting the industry

The catastrophic floods in Kerala have hit hard the OOH business, more so as the natural disaster happened in the month when Onam is celebrated in the state. Rajesh Kumar, Director, Chitra Painters explains that the floods have not caused any major structural damage to the media assets, and as regards, Chitra Painters, many of their hoardings assets are on the main road. However, the extensive damage to roads and other infrastructure has had a negative impact on the business.

Onam is the time when the spends are the highest but that wasn’t to be this year. OOH firms like Chitra Printers have resumed work but are faced with challenges of workers and employees having gone off to their respective home towns to attend to flood-related issues.

Even if the state and local businesses come back on track, the recovery in business will take some time. “It will take at least 6 months to bring the business and clients’ investments back on track. Primarily, the connectivity to some areas have been lost due to roads and infrastructure damages. Secondly, the local clients which used to invest on OOH will also take time to start advertising again”. He is optimistic that the advertisers to come back to the medium, sooner than later, and that they will use OOH much more.

To manage their current losses, he said that he would reach out to the agencies to settle the outstanding payments.